


understand this is a dream

by strikinglight



Series: The Closest Thing [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Established Relationship, First Crush, Graduation, Kageyama Tobio is a Dork, M/M, Pining, Unrequited Love, a dork with teenage angst in spades someone help him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 12:42:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6239821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikinglight/pseuds/strikinglight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Tobio is fifteen, and Sugawara Koushi is a foreign language to him. </p>
</blockquote><br/>In which one year passes, and the world ends for Kageyama--and yet it doesn't.
            </blockquote>





	understand this is a dream

Tobio wakes at exactly six in the morning on March 18th. The alarm he’d set the previous night isn’t due to go off for another half an hour—his own tired eyes narrowed to slits against the blue-white glare of his phone’s screen confirm this. He shoves it back under his pillow and lies still, unsure of what to do with the extra time.

After the first ten minutes, he turns onto his side, and his line of sight becomes all bare wall, white with a soft greyish cast in the early light. After another ten, he flips onto his stomach instead, presses his face into the pillow until it’s just a little hard to breathe. After the last ten, he stands, making for his closet.

The world isn’t about to end, and yet it is.

 

* * *

 

In a quiet corner of Tobio’s imagination it’s still April of the previous year, and there are too many new things in his world. Most of these he can deal with like he always has, shrug off the minor inconveniences and misdirections—the longer morning jogging route that will take him to his new school, the trees in bloom spilling their petals into his hair, the teachers and classmates and teammates he’s going to have to learn inside out from scratch.

“Kageyama!”

Tobio is fifteen, and Sugawara Koushi is a foreign language to him. He hasn’t stopped for anyone on his morning runs these past three years, maneuvering around other joggers, politely skirting mothers hand-in-hand with their children, but something inside him turns instinctively toward that voice. Before he realizes it he’s slowing down, and in turn Sugawara is speeding up, lengthening his strides until they fall into step with one another on the sidewalk.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to interrupt your run.” He’s laughing when he finally catches up, reaching up with one hand to comb sheepishly through his hair—the motion makes Tobio draw in a breath, suddenly unsteady. “I just wanted to say good morning. You can go on, if you like.”

But Tobio stays, conscious though he is of the film of sweat that covers his skin, and of the perfectly regular folds in Sugawara’s sleeves where they’re cuffed above the elbow.

“You didn’t interrupt me.” This comes out gruffer than intended. He clears his throat and tries again, though he can’t for the life of him figure out how to make himself sound friendly, school the lightness into his own voice that seems to come so naturally to everyone else he’s met. “I’ll walk with you, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“I’d love that,” Sugawara says. The sincerity makes his stomach turn over.

It’s not a far cry to imagine that, as early as now, Tobio is already half in love with him, though this is something he’ll only be able to see looking back.

 

* * *

 

The volleyball club has filed into one row of seats in the cordoned-off section of the school auditorium, marked _Guests._ They’ve been waiting an hour now, each one a different shade between sleepy and restless, too warm with their uniforms buttoned up all the way to the collar.

“Are they here?” Hinata is chafing beside him, knocking against his arm, practically bouncing in his seat. “Are they coming in yet?”

“Shhhh,” Tobio murmurs under his breath, distracted, but it’s lost underneath Tsukishima’s sharper “Shut it.” He sits on Hinata’s other side, Yamaguchi dozing next to him, head dipping down to bump against his shoulder. If Tobio looks far to the right, he knows, he’ll see that Nishinoya and Tanaka have lolled their heads back against the chairs, perhaps even begun to snore.

Yachi comes up the aisle and stops at his elbow, straightening the yellow ribbon pinned to her chest that marks her as an usher. “Any minute now, Kageyama-kun,” she says. There’s something fragile about the way she smiles up at him then, something watery shining in her eyes, so he reaches out and squeezes her arm, as gently as he knows how.

As if on cue, the entrance song begins to play, and the team—or what will remain of it after today—stirs itself to wakefulness as the big doors open. As one the team rises and stands to face them, Tobio in the aisle seat just a few beats ahead of the others, holding his breath.

 

* * *

 

July brings the rain. Sugawara forgets his umbrella.

That’s how Tobio finds him standing idle by the entrance of the supermarket one afternoon during summer break, fresh oranges in his hands. He’s watching the rain turn the street white, his expression spaced-out and thoughtful until Tobio appears out of the corner of his eye—then he smiles, and Tobio finds it as sunny as always, undampened by even the most minute trace of grey.

“Mom had a craving, and sent me out for some,” he says, like they’re just picking up the loose threads of an early conversation. Like there’s no need to stand on ceremony, because Tobio’s been right there next to him all day. “I didn’t think it’d just pour like this. Kind of dumb, huh?”

Not dumb, Tobio thinks. Not dumb at all. He’s not so dense as to fail to recognize a chance to score—somehow—when he sees one, and the opportunity is near-perfect. He can offer his umbrella. Better yet, he can offer to walk him home. He can—

“You can have this,” he says, with more force than strictly necessary. It doesn’t help that the stiff way he’s holding said umbrella out in front of him looks a little like he intends to club Sugawara over the head with it. “I like to jog in the rain.”

It’s such a ridiculous excuse Sugawara looks like he almost believes it. “I couldn’t—”

“Please,” Tobio insists, still with some violence. Then, because he’s realized too late that Sugawara doesn’t even have free hands to receive the umbrella with—never mind that the oranges are practically staring him in the face, nested inside their brown paper bag—he hangs it, ever so delicately, in the crook of his arm. Then bows. Then turns on his heel and runs, burning up from his face down to the tips of his toes.

He falls asleep that night with a stuffy nose and that last image in his dreams—Sugawara with his armful of fruit, bewildered in the white light.

He’s convinced he’s still dreaming when he finds two of the oranges—and the umbrella, dry—on his desk the following morning, a note in his mother’s handwriting next to them that reads only _Tobio: From a friend._

 

* * *

 

Tobio tells himself he’s not going to cry when Sugawara goes up onstage during the reading of names. Part of him is disgusted that he even has to think about it.

At first it’s easier than he thinks it’s going to be. It’s not hard to roll his eyes and feign indifference when Hinata and Yamaguchi are getting misty-eyed and reaching for their handkerchiefs before the teacher in charge even hits the _–ne_ in _Azumane._ He can hear the tears making hairpin-cracks in Nishinoya’s voice, too, even from the other end of the row—undercutting the exuberant yells, the fist-pumps.

The resolve buckles slightly by the time they make it down the list to _Sawamura_ and _Shimizu_ ; Tobio sees them mount the steps, notes the perfect right angle of each bow, and of their own accord his hands ball so tightly into fists the skin feels stretched to the point of tearing over the bones. He bites his lip, and it holds.

But Tobio’s still not ready to hear his name sound clear and golden over the PA system, to watch him rise from his seat and know even from this distance that he’s smiling. He’s not ready to see that smile open up still further as Sugawara crosses the stage for his diploma, until he steps forward to face the audience and he’s practically beaming, and the only word in Tobio’s mind is _brilliant, brilliant—_

He’s not ready for Sugawara. Tobio feels his eyes sting and supposes this has always been the case, anyway.

By now Hinata is all but howling into the folds of his handkerchief. He doesn’t notice when Tobio lowers his gaze to the floor, but Tsukishima’s sideways glance is keen as the edge of a knife.

 

* * *

          

“It works pretty much the same as any other combination,” Sugawara tells him. “Just don’t forget—you’ll all be running at the same time, but I’m going to toss to you.”

They’re seated cross-legged on the floor of the gym, almost knee to knee, and even if the October wind blows chill and jagged through the open doors Tobio feels warm. Sugawara has Ukai’s coaching board and a marker in his hand, and he sketches out the formation in a rapid sequence of circles and lines.

“You need to tell me how you like it.” Sugawara’s voice is low, as though they’re trading secrets and not discussing strategy. “So I know.”

Tobio’s throat goes dry; he almost answers _Anything. Anything from you._ But that wouldn’t be fair, when they promised to make this work together.

“I’ll probably come from the right. If you could make it arc up high—” He pauses, visualizing, his attention fractured between the mental frame-by-frame he’s drawing up of this play and the sight of those beautiful hands at rest on the coaching board. “I could sync up with it then, probably.”

“A high arc.” Sugawara smiles, and Tobio thinks it hurts a little how well he can picture the two of them in the game together, imagine the slight burn of the ball against his hand as he slams it down. “I’ll bring it to you. Trust me?”

“Of course I do, you’re—” The first word that comes is _wonderful._ The second is _perfect._ Tobio is acutely aware, suddenly, of how small those two words feel, how they mean next to nothing—especially when you weigh them against the way the light changes when Sugawara steps onto the court, the ease with which everyone moves when they’re next to him. All Tobio’s skill, all his vaunted genius, feels soulless in comparison, a mere sequence of empty numbers.

“Of course I do,” he finishes, and lets everything unsaid hang.

 

* * *

 

There’s a fine line between courage and madness, one that’s often drawn and crossed in a matter of seconds. By now Tobio’s intimately familiar with how this concept applies on the court, developed some measure of confidence in his ability to gamble on a split-second call, but it goes without saying that off-court it’s harder—the players harder to read, the consequences loaded down with more gravity somehow.

He’s had this gamble on the backburner for almost a year now, but it still takes a graduation ceremony, three group hugs, and at least twenty team photos by the school gate for him to finally make it.

“Sugawara-san.” Tobio contemplates reaching out to touch him—another minor gamble—but decides against it, channels his attention instead into keeping his voice steady. “Can I have a word?”

There’s no further way to qualify it— _in private, alone, just the two of us—_ that doesn’t make him feel dirty, especially here, now, with the team clustered around them in a messy huddle for what’s probably the last time, and Sugawara’s left hand clasped easily in Sawamura’s right. It feels foul to even ask, and Tobio vacillates, already halfway to taking it back when he smiles and says, “Sure,” like he understands what this is all about.

Tobio’s stomach twists. This is a mistake, he’s sure of it. There’s no way Sugawara can know and still find it in him to be so kind, so generous with himself, with his trust and his time.

“Daichi! Hey, Daichi,” he says over his shoulder. Tobio finds his line of vision narrowing, fixating on those joined hands, on the brush of Sugawara’s thumb across Sawamura’s knuckles. “We’ll be back, okay? Give us a few?”

“Of course,” Sawamura says. When he lets go, it looks effortless, their hands sliding apart as readily as they tangle together. Tobio hadn’t even thought it possible.

 

* * *

 

Tobio almost walks in on the two of them alone in the gym sometime in early January, long after practice is supposed to have ended.

In theory, the situation should be more straightforward than it is. For one, he doesn’t _mean_ to intrude, not really. He’d left his knee pads on the bench to one side earlier in his haste to be out of there, debated going back for them for some minutes more, really only decided to return because he figured it would be a hassle to lose them, with the spring tournament so close.

Second, there shouldn’t have been anything to _walk in on,_ strictly speaking. Tobio knows that one of the cardinal rules behind Karasuno’s leadership is that they’re always the first to arrive at practice and always the last to leave, and therefore it doesn’t make sense to think that his captains would be so affronted by the reappearance of one of their more absentminded kouhai, coming back for some forgotten thing. Knowing the two of them, they’ve probably been anticipating it.

The reality of things, however, isn’t so straightforward. Tobio knows this for a certainty when the sound of Sugawara’s voice brings him up short by the doors.

“I really don’t know what to _do_.” He’d recognize that voice anywhere, except tonight the intonation is all wrong. It’s as if the words themselves have gone brittle on their way out of his mouth, fracturing from something Tobio can’t identify. “Tell me what to do, Daichi.”

“Stop worrying, for one.” Tobio knows this voice too, this steady timbre, low and level. But there’s something different about it too, he thinks—he’s never heard Sawamura go soft like this before, not even in their most vulnerable moments as a team, when they’re all clinging to each other and half in tears. He sounds almost tender, and the realization makes Tobio retreat and press his back against the wall.

“I just—” Either the night has made Tobio’s ears uncannily sharp, or they’re standing close by; he hears it when Sugawara draws in a shuddering breath, hears the air rattle as it comes out of him. “I don’t want to mess this up.”

“You won’t,” Sawamura says. “Hey, come here. You won’t, I said.”

Tobio knows what’s on the other end of the _come here._ What he doesn’t know, he can imagine—the gentle touches, the angle of a head bent against a shoulder, the fit of an arm around a waist, hands resting at hips. He can almost see it.  He feels like a thief, almost, skulking just out of sight like this.

 

* * *

 

Tobio asks for a word, but Sugawara leads, motioning him solicitously forward and around a corner, until they’re behind the main building. After a surreptitious glance to either side to make sure they’re as alone together as they appear, he inclines his head and waits, neither prompting nor preempting. All he does is listen.

Tobio hasn’t practiced for this, but he figures it wouldn’t make much of a difference even if he had.

“I just—” One hand is in his pocket, curled so tight around the tiny metal circle there he feels the shape of it press like a tattoo into his skin. “I wanted—”

There are so many ways to say it, and Tobio finds they’re all wrong. _I like you_ is flimsy, _I love you_ too grave, _I’m in love with you_ too melodramatic, as if they’re about to die and Tobio’s depending on this confession to prevent the apocalypse.

The truth is that Sugawara’s the first thing he’s loved after volleyball, for reasons that have nothing to do with volleyball and everything to do with how many times over the past year he’s reached out with all gentleness and pried open Tobio’s heart, and there are no words to convey what that means to him. Instead he lets his hands do the talking, because they are the surest language he knows—and this is the equivalent, he supposes, of making a tricky toss to a teammate he can barely see over his shoulder, hands open for the ball.

“I wanted to give you this.” Yachi had said he could do it this way if no words were possible, that anyone would know what it meant when Tobio reached out and pressed the second button from off his uniform into their hand, even if they didn’t necessarily read shoujo manga. He feels a little silly, but he takes her suggestion in good faith.

Sugawara turns his hand palm up, tilting the button in the light. Tobio can’t read his smile this time. “Am I right about what I think this means?”

“I’m—I’m not sure it’s proper form, since you’re the one who’s graduating, but I—” He bites his lip, scratches at the back of his neck restlessly. “I thought it would be right to tell you, just to— I’m sorry, I didn’t know how else to say it.”

Sugawara opens his mouth, gets as far as “I’m s—” before Tobio cuts him off with a sharp “No!” Then, more softly, hoping to disguise the fact that he’s starting to babble and knowing that it’s going poorly, but babbling all the same, “No, please. You’ve been—”

The words that come are still the same: _Perfect. Wonderful. Everything I wanted._ No permutation is enough, so instead he swallows, changes direction. “If I’ve troubled you—”

“No.” It’s Sugawara who interrupts this time, though his interjection is more graceful, more measured by miles. “No, never.”

“Kageyama,” he says, after a pause. His fingers have curled over the button, caging it gently, like he’s hyper-aware of where it came from, of its place above Tobio’s heart. “You mean a lot to me, do you know that?”

Tobio doesn’t need to ask in what way he means. He feels suddenly feverish, seized with trembling from head to toe. 

“I’ll try to remember,” he says, because it's all he can promise. When he tries a smile it feels as grotesque as Hinata’s always telling him it looks, twisted and wrong, but Sugawara takes it anyway, all too forgiving—as he’s always been, if they’re being honest—of all of Tobio’s faults, all his awkward slip-ups. “Thank you, Sugawara-san.”

The world is ending, and yet it isn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> goddammit kags can you just find love with hinata in your second year and make all of this okay
> 
> send help
> 
> (there will be more to this eventually, probs)


End file.
